Chapter 21: Landfall

The Heiroc closed distance on the target planet at twenty thousand kilometers per hour. Directly to the heavy transport's right, the Yaska cruised along at the same speed, all of its systems running at full capacity, keeping track of anything that moved nearby, be it asteroid or scrap metal.

Ghelon, their target planet, was a whitish blue sphere orbiting a large yellow star, the distance just great enough that much of the planet's average surface temperature hovered above freezing. Nolta watched the crystalline surface grow in the view-screen as they neared orbital velocity.

"All ground troops to the cargo bay. Dust-off in five minutes."

Nolta rushed to the armory and found the soldiers lined up, each being handed a rifle and sidearm in addition to a thermal cloak. The fabric was designed with one side black and the other white, a reversible hood serving to cover the head and shoulders of the wearers.

Nolta accepted the items and made his way down to the hold, the thermal cloak draped across his broad shoulders. Once there, he witnessed the rest of the platoon in similar arraignment, featureless pillars topped with quarian helmets.

A loud series of hard clangs reverberated throughout the cargo bay and the large ramp lowered to admit a ferocious wind. White flakes swirled in as the gusts gathered in strength, buffeting each of the cargo hold's inhabitants. Nolta hurriedly pulled his hood over his helmet and held the cloak shut to bock out the cold, even as tiny flakes of snow landed on his visor.

Even compacted, the rifle on his back proved bulky enough to create a slight hole between the two lengths of the special material, admitting a frigid blast of air that seemed to soak though his suit and into his bones. Nolta shivered, repositioned his hands, and held the garment shut, immediately being rewarded by a tolerable temperature.

"Move out but stay close, it's easy to get lost in this kind of weather." Sergeant Nerril barked. The noncom advanced to the front of the pack, the barrel of his firearm protruding at a diagonal angle from the cloak over his shoulders.

Lae followed the group, flanked on one side by Rikka and on the other by Qell'Jehn. He could hear the sound of the platoon's collective footsteps as they marched though foot-deep snow, even over the raging howls of the wind. He felt the give beneath his feet and instinctively jerked his leg out of the snow. Qell suppressed a chuckle as the young man tentatively tried his other foot, then, realizing that he was being left behind, put on a brief burst of speed and fell in step.

Jehn's cloak was somewhat oddly shaped by an object mounted on her shoulders and it wasn't long before Nolta began to wonder what her specialization was. More likely than not, she was a heavy weapons specialist or a demolitions tech.

Several minutes of marching brought the soldiers to a large cliff. Sergeant Nerril directed the platoon along the top, parallel to the edge, referring to the sitemap stored on his omni-tool for positional data. Nolta caught a few fleeting glimpses of a dark grey object below, far out from the cliff, but couldn't make out any definite shape. It wasn't long before the unit began to descend and soon they were able to see the cliff face they'd been walking above minutes earlier.

Jagged blue ice protruded from the sides of the rock, giving the area a seemingly ethereal aquamarine glow. Nolta's breath stuck in his throat as he caught sight of the dark object he'd seen below. Much of it was hidden by snow and ice, but the majority of it protruded from the surface. It was long, dark, and clearly synthetic.

"Company, HALT!" Even without the radio, Nolta could hear the Sergeant's voice clearly. The team waited in silence, only the howling of the wind in the deep, bowl-shaped depression where they stood provided any noise. Small puffs of white mist trailed from each member of the platoon periodically as their breath met with the frigid atmosphere.

A brief, muted commotion rustled through the right side of the unit, drawing Nolta's attention towards a lone quarian female approaching them. Words were shouted between the woman and Sergeant Brasc as the two closed distance, then the volume died away once they were close enough to hear each other easily. Whatever they were discussing was swallowed by the inclement weather around the unit, and now that they were no longer moving, Nolta could feel the cold beginning to seep into his helmet.

"Company, MARCH!" The sergeant's bellow was followed by an immediate snap to attention and the platoon moved along the edge of the dark object buried in the snow. Lae discreetly ran an omni-tool scan on part of the object as they passed and quickly hid his arm from the biting cold. Not long after the last soldier had cleared the depression, Sergeant Brasc followed their guide into a hole in the ice.

Aquamarine walls curved up to meet in a graceful arch that formed the ceiling of the ice cave. Rikka's eyes followed each ripple as she drank in the gorgeous color of their shelter. Brasc cut in over their comms. "No firearms in here and no loud or sudden noises, we don't know how stable this cave is."

It took a few minutes to get the entire platoon inside, but the cave boasted ample room for both the soldiers and their gear with plenty to spare. Nerril made his way through the ranks, assigning various duties to the troops and having each check their equipment for thermal damage. "Nolta, you're on watch for the inside of the cave, Taar'Dei's scoped it as far back as three thousand feet, stays pretty bright most of the way back so you shouldn't have any trouble seeing anything that comes in."

"I don't know what gives Sarge, diagnostics mark it as fully functional, but I can't raise the Yaska or the Hieroc." Sere'Pallu vas Yaska turned another dial on the comm relay, tapped his omni-tool a few times and shook his head in frustration. Sergeant Brasc looked around. The storm had died down and the sky was a beautiful blue-green color. Clear weather but jammed comms, not good.

He returned his attention to the soldier in front of him, busily slaving away at the obstinate communications device before him. "Can't find a thing wrong with it, it just doesn't want to work."

"Get it running by sundown, we need that link open."

"I'll do what I..." Pallu's words dropped off and the sergeant found his eyes drawn skyward again as he noted the tech's gaze fixated on something in the air. A mass of clouds had seemingly appeared from nowhere and a subtle topaz aurora wisped through the air. Slowly, the clouds parted, admitting a megalithic pillar of metal and rock.

Large gray rings rotated around the base and middle of the object, each adorned with wickedly long spikes. Golden lightning arced from the clouds to caress the stone modules orbiting the column's uppermost edges. Nerril stood transfixed until the object made contact with the ground roughly two klicks away. Every quarian in the cave and at its entrance felt the titanic tremor reverberate through their feet as a massive cloud of snow billowed from the base of the megalith.

"That's bigger than the Rayya…" Sere's voice seemed subdued.

"Everyone! Inside! NOW!" Nerril's orders did not have to be repeated and the few soldiers not in the ice caves made a bee-line for the entrance. "Defensive positions! Get the heavies-"

Brasc stumbled to the ground, thrown from his feet by a topaz energy beam. Several more energy weapons began to fill the air, accompanied by what seemed to be assault rifle rounds. Nolta pushed his way towards the front of the cave despite the protests of his bunkmate and several soldiers along the way. By the time he reached the opening, the young biotic was hardly able to see anything through the gunfire, smoke and snow being kicked up from the firefight.

Dark silhouettes danced in the white clouds at the entrance, ducking out from behind cover to loose a handful of rounds before taking shelter again behind whatever would shield them from enemy fire. Nolta dimly noted stray shots impacting the cave wall around him, chipping off bits of ice and rock. Out of instinct, Lae ducked down and drew his rifle, subconsciously backing away from the mouth of the cave.

None of the chaos in front of him made any sense, if he fired, he was just as likely to drop a friendly as one of the hostiles. In the commotion, he barely noticed his radio flare to life, Rikka's panicked voice assaulting his already overtaxed ears.

"Nolta, we've got hostiles coming in the back way, NOLTA! Where ARE you! ?"

Something in the back of the young man's mind crystallized, the sound of a fellow quarian in distress focused his racing thoughts into one, solid directive: Defend.

Again, he forced his way through the mess of soldiers, ordering some to follow, nearly spooking some of them into firing, but gathering enough of a following to bolster his confidence. The first rounds to strike at his position came from the right. Nolta instinctively snapped his rifle in the direction of the shot and loosed a pair of short bursts. A strange insectoid scream filled the air and two brown, chitinous creatures tumbled to the frozen floor of the cave.

In the few seconds he had to observe them, Nolta noted that the aliens seemed thoroughly insectoid, boasting not only chitinous brown shells but segmented limbs and bodies. He couldn't be sure, but it looked as though they also bore gossamer two pairs of gossamer wings. The examination was short lived, as a fresh set of the aliens appeared in the aperture, weapons blazing.

Author's Note:

I know this is horrifically overdue, but I have worse news. There is a non zero possibility that I will not continue this fiction any time in the near future if ever. This is in thanks partly to my having gotten a very stressful job, which has induced a moderate case of writer's block, and to my having restarted on my own I.P. We shall see. On a lighter note, the soundtrack for Crysis 2 is FREAKING AWESOME! Just remove the spaces in the URL

youtube . com/watch ? v=yCEBLjJ-2l0&feature